Lecithin is a commercial by-product of vegetable oil production and is typically obtained from vegetable oils such as soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, or corn oil. The high phospholipid content of lecithin makes it a natural emulsifier, stabilizer, baking improver, and wetting agent.
The mains phospholipids in lecithin are phosphatidyl choline (PC), phosphatidyl ethanolamine (PE), phosphatidyl inositol (PI), and phosphatidic acid (PA). The purified phospholipids, in particular PC, are often desired since they are value added nutritional and/or pharmaceutical compounds. Various methods have been developed to purify these phospholipids.
Some of the current methods of purifying the individual phospholipids use lecithin as a starting point. While these methods may be effective at purifying the phospholipids from the lecithin, the resulting products are the purified phospholipids and “phospholipid depleted” lecithin. A drawback of these methods is that while a higher value phospholipid may be obtained, the value of the lecithin itself may be of lower value since it has been depleted of the high-value phospholipid.
Thus, needs exists for improved methods of fractionating and/or purifying phospholipids, yet keeping the value of the various products associated with the process.